Another month in quarantine came, as I spent day after day feeling stranded on my own island, sinking deeper and deeper into my own thoughts. This was supposed to be my last month in college. This was supposed to be the final stretch. I hopped on a zoom call with my adviser (who at this point has become more of a close friend), to talk about graduation. I told her how I felt about all the coursework I was doing.
I would wake up everyday knowing I had to finish a novel for my Tutorial in Writing course which I didn't feel I was understanding enough about. On top of that was my Media Law course. Before the pandemic started, this was the only other course I enjoyed because it was half in person, and half online, so adapting to all online wasn't the hardest adjustment.
Then there was Capstone, the epicenter of my time being a Professional Writing major. The novel I was writing for that course was based around a track athlete, which I thought would make the planning process easier. However, all that time planning was spent trying to gather myself from the beginning of the year. Then there was my last course I had, which was Creative Writing. This was where I released all my emotions and angers of my personal life experiences in shorter works that would be explained and looked over by my classmates who rarely saw my face on screen. However, because I was revealing a lot of the struggles I faced while in University on paper, I didn't subject my classmates to the black box with my name on it, like I did in Capstone. All these courses though had me feeling the same way. I didn't have much care associated with them at all. I wasn't learning anymore, just getting by.
I told my adviser how hard all of this was affecting me. Not just the school, or the virus, but the months previous, Kobe and everything thus far. She went from being an adviser to being a therapist. I didn’t feel like my writing was good anymore, I didn't see any of myself in it, no matter the amount of time I wrote. Every piece felt like the bare minimum, with some creativity that was shaped to the standards of Gaylord. Creative writing felt like my release of emotions because it wasn’t graded the same because it wasn’t a Gaylord course.
However, my Gaylord courses caused me to continue questioning my own belief of if I was a good writer, or even a good student at all. For some reason, the college I was about the graduate from brought me more stress than happiness as I got closer to the end.
My older sister Shalisa though, she and I were supposed to graduate at the same time. Graduating in person within days, if not hours of each other, was the original plan. My cap and gown hung on my closet door everyday since I got them from the graduation gear-up day before the pandemic hit. They hung there, almost haunting me as a reminder that as much as I wanted now to be the time to graduate, I knew it wasn’t.
My sister would be done with all her actual coursework this month, she’d be having her ‘virtual’ ceremony in just a few weeks. I on the other hand pondered if I felt worthy enough to join her and graduate at the same time. I still had a math course to still take, which I had planned to take in the upcoming summer at the same community college my sister spent her first two years at, before transferring to UNT.
On top of that though, I had to re-take a course that was only offered in the fall. I felt ashamed of myself. I told my adviser “I don’t want to graduate now and still have classes to take. When I'm finished, I want to feel like I truly have finished." More than that though, I wanted this to be my sister’s moment first. So, the goal of graduating in an exact four years (which I harped on myself to do ever since I enrolled at OU), was now being altered by myself. I just couldn’t live with myself having to still come back to the University, after already having gone through the full graduation process.
As I looked over my shoulder at the cap and gown, then peered back to my adviser, she reassured me that there would be a better chance at having an in-person graduation in December. I pictured my family all around me, just days after I would’ve turned 23 years old, all celebrating my graduation together. That image in my head was more realistic to envision, than rushing a graduation that was quickly approaching.
I thought of my peers who up until this moment figured I was graduating this month with them, and I felt bad inside for a bit about it. Although, I liked my decision to take one more semester and know that the cap and gown was going to have to wait just a few months longer. The finish to this year would be me finishing school entirely, and I liked the finale of it all. The coursework wasn’t too challenging or anything more than what I thought it would be, I just didn’t feel right inside trying to end it like this. My entire college experience was always in my hands, and giving myself the proper ending was what I deserved.
I closed my zoom advising session with a half-smile and sat back in the chair, knowing that I was going to have one more semester to go. I felt more proud of my sister though. Her being six years older and getting her fashion design degree from the University of North Texas was what made it feel more special. I still had some more work to do, while she was transitioning in a way I had never seen before. Not only was she graduating, but she already was ahead of the game in terms of profiting and helping during the quarantine.
She had been making face masks ever since she knew how high in demand they would be. She made colorful ones, custom designs and specific letterings and graphics on them and sold them faster and more effective than some stores I would see on social media do. She was thriving at the end of her college career and thankfully would send over money for help to get through the pandemic on my end. Although she did not get an in-person graduation, the look on her face when she worked hours and hours on masks that she would sell to customers was worth knowing that her degree gave her purpose immediately. It was inspirational and reminded me that all the years of hard work, even doing coursework that sometimes didn’t seem to make sense related to my major, in the grand scheme of things had a pay off. She had a fire in her eyes that I didn't anymore. I smiled while watching her expand her business and believe in herself again. I vicariously lived through her to get through that tough time and tough decision.
Unfortunately, as I would sit in the same dorm day after day doing the same things, getting through the semester, it soon became apparent that although I altered my time being a student, I had no control over my time still living in the dorms. I had to move out of the dorms, because the pricing for summer housing had increased unbeknownst to anyone. The sudden change came out of nowhere as a depleted campus would now become even more empty. It was only right to get an apartment close by, sign a lease, and ride the rest of my OU career away from the campus.
I settled on the Millennium apartments just down the street. I was accompanied by my partner at the time when making this decision, however, I found myself sinking more and more into my own thoughts when transitioning to a new place. After deciding not to graduate in May, I focused on what I wanted my next semester to look like now that it would be more online based, and I wouldn’t be inclined to even go to the campus anymore. Within just 2 weeks of the month, I had packed up everything in my dorm, called up my best friends to help me move, and before you knew it, I was gone. Instead of graduation being my transition, moving was mine.
The lease I had signed was scheduled to end in May (even though I knew was graduating in December), however, I didn’t worry about that at the moment. I would still make another decision regarding whether I would stay the rest of my lease or not. Moving in during quarantine however, allowed my mind to escape a lot more from whatever reality was presenting me with. For the first time, I woke up in a bed and didn’t see the stadium, or another dorm next to me. I had a kitchen, rent to pay, and now a balcony to sit out on whenever my mind would overflow with thoughts (which happened more often than usual now).
I was missing something to actually work on again. My job in admissions and recruitment before the pandemic was uplifting because of how much I felt I helped incoming students feel welcomed to the University everyday. I hadn't worked in the office since March, so when my supervisor told us we'd finally return to work, I knew it wouldn't be the same, just like everything else. I was making money for waiting at the computer for someone to need my help, instead of being in the office, seeing faces and taking calls (the calling part I honestly didn't mind not doing anymore). The only component of the job that stayed, was writing letters to be sent with the acceptance boxes. From time to time I would receive personal messages back on social media from incoming students thanking me back. Those little pockets of joy would get me through the day. I felt limited to a degree in the position. Nonetheless, I was grateful to be working again.
Throughout the month, my time on social media varied, as I grew more and more impatient with things that aggravated me, or seeing mass amounts of people still making light of the virus and the affects of it. I would always question if I was the only one in the world taking it seriously. It would cause me to think that I was missing out on something, but I stuck to my mentality which slights changed from 'survival of the fittest', to 'survival of the less ignorant.'
As I scrolled through my phone one day, I saw a video appear on my feed blurred with the *sensitive content* warning on it. At this point, I was distancing myself from being caught up with everything that was trending or capturing attention, outside of COVID updates. I accepted that what I wanted to see would might be triggering. It began as a video of a man running down a street. I didn’t look at the caption, I just watched him jogging, as if he were working out.
Then I saw a truck appear and a man in the back pop up out of nowhere. As the jogger ran around the truck, he stopped. The next few seconds were truly some of the most horrific I’ve ever seen. The driver of the vehicle tried to cut him off and as soon as a weapon came into focus and I saw him fighting for his life, he was shot in cold blood, just like that. As I heard the gunshot and watched him fall to the ground, I just froze and turned my phone over. I immediately wished I hadn't seen it, wanting to desperately erase it from my mind. I read the caption and scrolled through the thread to see everyone else’s reaction and the awareness that this was spreading.
The horrifying thing was that I thought I was watching something that happened today and was just caught on tape. No, that wasn’t the case. This was something that happened back in late February, and it seemed like the world was just now seeing this video being released to the public. Comment after comment rolled through. People in shock and disgust, but also people who were nonchalant about it and seemingly brushing it off or trying to justify the murderous actions by any means necessary.
Up until that day, I took daily runs with my headphones in around the campus to not feel so trapped inside the apartment. As I watched the video, I pictured myself jogging, like he was, and avoiding the vehicle just thinking it was another car. I had just purchased an armband to hold my phone in place while I ran too. I didn’t even open it yet. I placed it in my closet and knew I wouldn’t be touching it anytime soon. I saw protests and some of my friends taking part in the #runwithmaud. I couldn't bring myself to even leave the apartment, as so many thoughts flooded my mind about how much more terrible could the year become.
I tried just once after watching the video to jog around with my headphones on and couldn’t bring myself to do it. I hadn't been affected this way by watching something like this before. It was a modern-day lynching. I looked over my shoulder every second I tried to make it to the campus, and couldn’t fathom how someone’s life could be taken away so fast and so horribly. It didn’t matter what music I was playing or how safe I knew the campus was, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It burrowed in my mind and made me feel so many emotions at once.
What I thought was a single blow, slowly became an avalanche of realization, that things would only get worse. Not too soon after that, an eight-minute video in Minneapolis involving multiple officers and George Floyd shook the country forever.
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